The Catholic Church first officially started keeping a library around the fourth century. Formed at the height of the first great heresy craze, the
contents of this library included a lot of attacks on heretical branches of Christianity and the documents and scriptures used by these heretical
branches.

I'm not sure on what you base this, but you should know that the modern Vatican library is almost entirely the result of the collecting efforts of
the renaissance pope, Leo X. Rome was completely depopulated during the Dark Ages, you know, and at one point the Popes moved to Avignon.

As the centuries wore on, the list of banned and dangerous books grew and grew...

The index expurgatorius is a renaissance creation. There is no trace of such a thing before the invention of printing. After all, when books are
scarce, who needs it?

In addition to Nazi collaboration, the archives are generally thought to contain rather a lot of information about the Catholic Church's
wrongdoings, such as the current scandal on priestly pedophilia. In fact, the archives contain miles of allegations concerning the sexual kinks and
other vices enjoyed by priests and bishops, dating back to at least the 14th century, and possibly even earlier.

They also contain details of a secret invention of the popes during the middle ages. It was a poison they introduced into drinking water all over
Western Europe, and it made those who didn't support the papacy utter gibberish. It's still working, it seems...

But then again, who really knows how many vaults there are below Vatican city and a vast network of catacombs.

I'd imagine the published excavations give a pretty good picture. There can't be too big a hole underneath or the floor will fall in.

i heard that in the middle ages popes and cardinals often had hidden rooms in their castles and such for donations that didnt quite make it back into
circulation. im not sure if that still goes on but i wouldnt doubt it if there's a huge stash down there, especially during the 70's when the popes
banker was mysteriously in debt for 130 million and then he died again mysteriously.

i heard a while ago something like that, the catholic church apparently found some scrolls or something that practically said that a bunch of their
teachings weren't true or were sinfull or someting (but said that Jesus was still the son of God and everything) and so they hid them somewere, i
guess thats were they would have hid them......................

You're close I think.........Remember that the catholics would not allow the people to read the Bible for themselves, but translated it into Latin,
allowing only the clergy to interpret, (that was a part of why Martin Luther 'protested').
My theory is that most of the New Testament was also written in Hebrew, translated later into Greek. While the catholics/Greeks were translating it
they realized that the real truth would remove their power and ability to control the masses. SO....they translated it their way (like Burger King)
and hid the real manuscripts in those vaults to keep anyone from knowing the full truth.
If you begin to study Hebrew, especially Hebrew idioms and culture of the day, you realize that a lot of what we (protestants and catholics), the
church are taught that scriptures mean, are ludicrous, if not outright heretical.
Dig into the Hebrew roots of Christianity, don't take my word for that.
But don't dare confront a priest or pastor with any of your findings until you are well grounded in your facts.
Banjo Guru

We should also remember that the vatican has been a great invester in world domination through religion. They live by their own code and laws. where
else has so many from different backgrounds come together for one cause(including nazis). It is my belief taht they hold text/scrolls etc from many
lands including afrrica and egypt. we should remember that the mystery schools where in egypt. they where destroy and all text taken to europe, those
that werent were burned. Ive read that that number was in the half million mark. these include info on the body, meditation, spirituality, history,
technology etc. im sure we cannot complrehend what they know of as we are still behind civilations thousands of years old.
books such as the nag hammandi, book of solomin, book of enoch, dead sea scrolls and egyptian book of the dead gives us an idea. now imagine all the
text we know of and that is problaby 2-5 percent of exiting text. I have all sorts of books that are prts left out of the bible including supposed
first hand accounts of Jesus as far as him doing his thing apart from whats stated in the bible

If I were in control of what was in the vault, and its existence was common knowledge, I'd probably want any dangerous materials that may harm
Catholicism's credibility, or anything else for that matter which I'd prefer to remain in the dark be: burned, destroyed, or moved to a secure
location where no one would expect said materials to be found.

If Johnny has $50,000 and a piggy bank that's reachable, do you think Johnny would store his money therein being fully aware that he can be easily
robbed?

I believe they may however still have valuable materials or writings of other sorts since knowledge of their vaults is common (sorta...) their
security must be of supreme quality, sufficient enough for them not to worry.
((My thoughts available to be flamed))

Most of what is in the secret vaults are manuscript copies of various gnostic sects and what the Roman churches eventually considered "heresy"...but
an American CIA Agent-representative to Damascus named Miles Copeland (and his wife) claimed for years that they had in their possession (from an
Egyptian merchant) a copy of a Pesher (line by line commentary) of the Book of Daniel from Cave 11 (part of the missing Dead Sea Scrolls) which he
photopgraphed from the roof of the American legation in a stiff wind that peeled off small pieces from the edges of the scroll (wince!!) ...from what
an expert from Beirut said, part of the text was in Aramaic and part was written in Herodian Hebrew letters from the 1st century BC

Both the scroll and BOTH sets of the colour photos were duly confiscated by the Ecole Biblique of the Vatican in 1949 before anyone could publish
it....

However small fragments of another Daniel scroll text without the pesher comments were eventually found at Qumran five years after the reported
incident. Even these small Daniel fragments showed large textual differences from the Daniel that Jews and Christians read today in their mangled
Masoretic text copies...

The Vatican did not want anyone to "puiblically-challenge" the "current" version of Daniel in the Masoretic text of the bible (which dates from
around 980 AD from a single copy found in Leningrad) by comparing it line by line with the version from the 1st century BC which is more than 1000
years older...

No wonder they confiscated it !! And rumour has it that this scroll is only one of a number of ahem, Missing, ahem Dead Sea Scrolls that will never
see the light of day in your lifetimes !!

Two thousand years is a long time to build up a collection of books and items of a sort to threaten their teachings. The church has a lot of power
imho and I am sure they could exercise it to acquire more than a few first editions.
I don't think they would ever open their doors and expose all to the public.
If they had nothing to hide, that nothing they have would be found... interesting, why not use that bank balance of theirs and fund the construction
of a facility to house the collection? One that they could make a lot of money from by selling tickets to the public. Security wise, I would imagine
they could come up with something to rival Fort Knox for sure

Personally, I would love to take a peek at the Occult section, just the rumours are making my mouth water. I'm off to see if I can get my permission
slip. If not, then I'm caling the A-Team

I was persoonally raised a catholic but it dont mean im devout or anything. I have wondered about the vatican for years. I think there could be some
truth in the film "Constantine" and that in the vatican evil and good work together to influence the world.

Maybe jesus himself is still alive and lives in the vatican or maybe his body is resting there in a krypt of some sort.

New member here who would love to see this thread brought back to life. No matter what the reason, to with hold these records/artifacts is just
wrong... wrong... wrong. What puzzles me more than what's there is the fact that the Vatican does not experience more scrutiny for this. What's the
deal?

In Rome, Sydney and Vaughn pose as repairmen and get into the archival files area of the Vatican. Vaughn tells Sydney he would like to take her to
the Trattoria de Nardi, his favorite restaurant. They find the code key on the frame of a portrait of Pope Alexander VI.

Lmao take it from me, the Swiss were collaborating based on the fact that both countries remained neutral. The Vatican doesn't pay the guards, their
own country (Switzerland) does. The "secret" vaults may include several rarities. Possibly even sacred objects such as a grail, the ark of the
covenant, and other miraculous items/rare objects. I'm pretty sure that is the case, but as far as mysticism goes, there is nothing that would
disprove the religion itself.
They aren't some greed hungry pseudo-religion e.g: Scientology. The Inquisitions consisted of the church turning people over to the State and the
State performed any tortures and killing. The State consisted of Catholics as well, since the known world pretty much was predominately Catholic, thus
the common mis perception is that the church itself presided over the unjust actions and not the governments.
There are cathechlismal documents regarding the religion as well as treasures and such. Perhaps one day, they will show what's there, but until
then it remains unknown to most people.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.